Louisiana: Vouchers don’t hurt desegregation

A closely watched school voucher program that has come under scrutiny from the Obama administration because of worries it may harm federal desegregation efforts doesn’t have that effect, according to an analysis of the program the state filed in federal court late Thursday.

And Louisiana said the racial imbalance in about 16 school districts actually improved because of it.

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The state provided the data in response to a request from the U.S. Department of Justice, which has asked what effect the school voucher program has had on the racial makeup of participating schools. The department has also filed an injunction to keep the Louisiana from granting vouchers next school year unless participants receive court approval.

The lawsuit has become a touchstone for prominent Republicans, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, House Speaker John Boehner and Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, who have accused the Obama administration of trying to deprive children of educational opportunities. Most of the students using the vouchers are minorities.

No one has been more outspoken in their objection to the suit, however, than Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Jindal has repeatedly pressed President Barack Obama to visit some of the schools students using vouchers attend. Obama is in New Orleans touring the port, but there are no plans to visit schools or discuss the voucher suit.

Louisiana hired Boston University political science Professor Christine Rossell to analyze the effect of vouchers in 34 districts in the state under desegregation orders. Rossell found that in all but four of the districts – some of which are majority white, some majority black and some more evenly split – vouchers improved or had no effect on racial imbalance. And in the districts where racial imbalance worsened, the effects were “miniscule.”

Louisiana’s voucher program allows students to transfer out of failing public schools into private schools using public funds. The majority of the students participating in the 2012-13 school year — almost 76 percent — were non-white. A total of 551 students used the vouchers.

Rossell’s analysis looks at the district demographics during the 2011-12 school year, before the voucher program expanded statewide, and during the 2012-13 school year, after the expansion. She used the “interracial exposure index” to determine racial balance in each school district, something she said she has used in dozens of school desegregation cases she has worked on. Two districts, St. James Parish and Lincoln Parish, saw “fairly substantial reductions” in racial imbalance, Rossell concluded.

If the court finds that the voucher program doesn’t harm federal desegregation efforts, then the Justice Department has asked that an analysis like Rossell’s be conducted each year.

During the 2012-13 school year, the first year of statewide operation of the voucher program, more than 10,000 Louisiana students applied for a voucher and more than 5,700 were offered to families, according to the state. The award process is conducted through a random lottery. Applications for the 2013-14 school year rose to almost 12,000 and the state offered more than 8,500 slots. Nearly 6,800 students have accepted.

Along with the analysis, Louisiana filed a statement from state Superintendent John White. He noted that more than 90 percent of students using vouchers last school year were minority students, the vast majority of whom were African-American. And more than 85 percent of scholarship students for the 2013-14 school year are black.

Of the 34 districts considered in the analysis, DOJ is a party to the desegregation orders in 24. The Justice Department identified 10 additional districts subject to desegregation orders in cases where DOJ isn’t involved.

In a brief, the state answered two questions the court will consider Nov. 22: Does the federal desegregation order apply to the school voucher program, requiring the state to get permission from the court before issuing vouchers, and if it does, is there a need to create a process of review?

The brief says federal desegregation law doesn’t apply because the law specifically targets schools, not programs. The law was created to prevent the state from providing assistance to racially discriminatory or segregated private schools that were acting as a haven for those leaving racially integrated public schools.

The voucher program assists students, not schools, and all of the participating schools are compliant with desegregation law, the brief says. DOJ has no basis to regulate the program by conducting an analysis of racial imbalance every year and it has no basis in requiring the participants to seek court approval, the brief says.

“The scholarship program does not provide aid to private racial discrimination, and it does not discriminate or segregate on the basis of race,” the brief says. “Rather, the program is designed to empower parents to decide what school is best for their own children and to provide a desperately needed alternative for children from impoverished families who would otherwise be trapped in failing public schools, the vast majority of whom – over 85 percent – are African-American.”